Interview with Carolyn S. Ingram, August 30, 2006

Interview Summary

Carolyn Ingram talks about how she first became PRIDE coordinator for Menifee County, Kentucky, and later, Frenchburg, Kentucky. She talks about her volunteer work and membership on various nonprofit boards in the community, including her involvement with the new library. Ingram describes some of the programs that she helped implement through grants and funding provided by the PRIDE program. She talks about Menifee becoming a Certified Clean County, their tire amnesty program, appliance disposal, recycling, the cleanup of all of the dumps in the county, spring and fall cleanup, disposal sites and dumpsters, and litter abatement funds, among other programs. She talks about her position as PRIDE coordinator, the lack of supplies she was given, and PRIDE's lack of understanding about how poor some counties are. She talks about the process of reimbursement through PRIDE. She talks about the attitudes of people in the county about dumping, specifically the people who still illegally dump their waste despite available trash pickup and disposal sites.

Ingram talks about the amount of work she did to secure grants and funding for environmental programs; and also talks about how others in the community are not putting forth the same effort. She talks about confusion in the community regarding what grants can be used for. She talks about how Menifee County once got its water and the construction of a regional water treatment plant. Ingram says that she had her doubts initially about the effectiveness of PRIDE but has been proven wrong. She talks more about how she has helped clean up Menifee County, including the process of passing a law for mandatory trash pickup. She talks more about programs she attempted to create and why PRIDE did not approve them. Ingram talks about why tourism is low in Menifee County and why there is not much hope for improvement. She talks about where most people in the community work, and why there is not much industry in the area.

Interview Keyword

Kentucky--Politics and government Politicians--Kentucky Tourism--Kentucky Employment--Kentucky Environmental education.

Interview LC Subject

Frenchburg (Ky.) Refuse and refuse disposal. Volunteers Pollution. Waste disposal sites Menifee County (Ky.) Environmental law. Environmentalism Recycling (Waste, etc.)

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Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.